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Maybe It's Time to Occupy the Police State

When the first major evacuation of Occupy Oakland was ordered, and police responded in full riot gear, I wrote at the time:

A little friendly advice for the police: if you want a protest or a rally to dissipate, ignore it. Until it turns into a violent riot, ignore it. Even if it goes on for weeks and months, eventually people go home.

If you want to make the protests more poignant, more profound, if you want to swell the ranks of the protesters and give them even more legitimacy, attack them with tear gas and flashbombs. Arrest them en masse.

Even better, pepper-spray unarmed, nonviolent protesters while they sit in a line. According to James Fallows, police are claiming that the officer who pepper-sprayed a number of Occupy protesters at UC Davis Friday responded in self-defense during a tense moment. Here’s the picture he uses to illustrate the absurdity of this claim:

Let’s stipulate that there are legitimate questions of how to balance the rights of peaceful protest against other people’s rights to go about their normal lives, and the rights of institutions to have some control over their property and public spaces. Without knowing the whole background, I’ll even assume for purposes of argument that the UC Davis authorities had legitimate reason to clear protestors from an area of campus — and that if protestors wanted to stage a civil-disobedience resistance to that effort, they should have been prepared for the consequence of civil disobedience, which is arrest.

I can’t see any legitimate basis for police action like what is shown here. Watch that first minute and think how we’d react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria. The calm of the officer who walks up and in a leisurely way pepper-sprays unarmed and passive people right in the face? We’d think: this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population. That’s what I think here.

That’s what I think, too. It’s funny, I’d really started to grow a little cold on Occupy Wall Street lately. Protests only go so far. Tent cities eventually wear out their welcome. At some point you need to get up, get online, start trying to elect people. At some point, you have to also play the game in order to win.

But it’s hard not to be supportive of people exercising their democratic rights, their right to dissent, who end up suffering violence for it.

Nor is this an isolated incident. Steven Taylor passes along this video of police at Berkely suddenly brutally attacking protesters there with batons:

I see several things at play here. One the increased militarization of the police which has been going on ever since the US military began supplying police forces around the country back in the nineties. Two, the fallout of 9/11, the War on Terror, and the Patriot Act. And three, the enormous power of technology and social media to act, at least in some cases, as antidotes to the increasingly invasive state.

If the pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis had happened before smart phones and video phones, it would have been the word of the protesters against the word of the police. If this had all happened before the internet and blogs and social media, it would have taken ages before the old media apparatus would have found the wherewithal to track down the truth and then disseminate that information.

Now the incident goes viral. The University is launching a probe. Strangely, though, the police act as though these new realities don’t exist or don’t matter. The question for those of us who value civil liberties is whether the police are right. In an age of increasingly diminishing liberty – police abuse, warrantless wire-tapping, indefinite detention, etc. etc. – maybe they really can act with impunity. Maybe a few heads will roll but the machine, the institution itself, will chug along unfettered as ever.

Maybe it’s time to Occupy more than Wall Street. I mean, I see that it’s all wound together. I really do appreciate the focus on crony capitalism and the revolving door between Washington D.C. and Wall Street. But the increasingly scary portrait of an ever more powerful, unhampered system of law enforcement really does worry me. These incidents illustrate why it should worry everyone, regardless of your class or political stripe.

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The UC Davis pepper spraying incident will quickly be determined to be unlawful. Under 4th Amend. case law, only that amount of force that is reasonably necessary under the circumstances may be used to effect an arrest or overcome resistance. (Headwaters Forest Defense v. Humboldt )

In that case, pepper spray was applied to the eyes of non-violent protesters via Q-tips in order to have them release their arm-locks within tubes that were preventing the police from removing the protesters. A suit was brought against the Chief of Police and his deputy by the protesters; the defendants mounted a qualified immunity defense (government and quasi-government officials are immune from prosecution for actions within the scope of their duties). Ultimately, the 9th Circuit determined (after further guidance from the US Supreme Court) that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity.

The defendants (Police) asserted that the protestors’ actions constituted “active resistance to arrest” meriting the use of force. Incorrect, noted the 9th Circuit, as the protestors were sitting peacefully and did not threaten or harm the officers. The Court determined it would be clear to a reasonable officer that it was excessive to use pepper spray against the nonviolent protestors under those circumstances, and that the Chief and deputy were liable for the protestors’ injuries, and WERE NOT ENTITLED TO QUALIFIED IMMUNITY.

The UC Davis campus police should expect a similar outcome.

There is no need to worry that there is an ever more powerful, unhampered system of law enforcement – we just need to hope that existing case law is applied.

Cops are remarkably brave when they are armed and armored, confronting unarmed college students.

Cops however lose that courage when faced with personal liability and threats to their pensions.

Officer Bologna (NY pepper spray incident), lost 10 vacation days, but became a folk hero to other cops – good trade for him, bad trade for New Yorkers.

Imagine if Bologna’s pension had been at risk – I suspect that he would have made whatever personal apologies necessary to protect his income. Other cops would have taken note of his personal liability.

Given the abundance of police resources devoted to the OWS movements, it is obvious that either cops have the wrong priorities or there are too many cops on the street.

Good point about how the police may not want the protests to end. In the world of Freakonomics, this makes sense. The police are incentivised with perpetuating the unrest because they are receiving big overtime paychecks.

Did you see were the retired Police Chief of Philadelphia got arrested at occupy NY? He called the NY City police; “‘obnoxious, arrogant and ignorant’”. Now the NYC Police and the Seattle Police have something in common! Please get your officers to respect people and knock off the pepper spray free for all. This occupation movement has just begun, and if the City of Seattle and their police treat them as they have, you are setting up a terrible mess.

Sincerly, Kenn

Dear Mr. President,

There is a very large demonstration being planned for January 20th, 2012 at the Federal Courthouse at 700 Stewart street in Seattle, – and at every Federal Courthouse in the United States.. There are many groups organizing and “gearing up” for this demonstration. I will be promoting and advertising it. This “occupy movement” has only just begun. I suggest you figure out your plan of action and response; The rules of engagement; – Need a way better understanding of what is going on; – than during WTO in Seattle. Treat the people like they are the enemy, and they will become it

January 20, 2012 – Move to Amend Occupies the Courts!

Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark this date — Occupy the Courts — a one day occupation on Friday January 20, 2012, of the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States and as many of the 89 U.S. District Court Buildings as we can. (I am inspired by Doctor Martin Luther King who said; “a true revolution of values”, … “there comes a time when silence is betrayal”., “people are not gonna be silenced”.). Move to Amend will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.

Please Sign the petition to amend the Constitution for revoking corporate personhood at:

movetoamend.org

It’s Time to GET MONEY OUT of politics

Bailouts. War. Unemployment. Our government is bought, and we’re angry. Now, we’re turning our anger into positive action. By signing this petition, you are joining our campaign to get money out of politics. Our politicians won’t do this. But we will. We will become an unrelenting, massive organized wave advocating a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

Well… this is what happens when you let the government overstep its mandate in every aspect of life, turn over your rights, and take away the rights of others because of liberal stupidity.

THIS is why the forefathers told us to bear arms. We are supposed to be protecting ourselves not handing it over to an agency that shows up AFTER a crime is committed. This, is what Americans have begged for now they are going to whine about it like some spoiled little brat? Americans deserve this. They handed their power over to feral governments and refused to hold them accountable. This is nothing. A sample of what is to come.